6/14/2011 @ 6:00PM

Iran Postulates First Nuclear Test

Media outlets and blogs in Israel, England, and the U.S. have responded with considerable incredulity to claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of sanguine reactions if Iran tests an atom bomb.

The IRGC’s scenario underscores an unfortunate reality, however. After years of hollow threats, politicians and generals in the U.S., E.U., and Israel likely will adapt to the mullahs obtaining a nuclear weapon. World stock markets would follow their lead and recover from initial tumbles. Crude oil and natural gas prices may surge for a while but will fall back down. Arab countries relying on petroleum revenues to stay afloat and Western ones needing a steady flow of energy to power their societies are likely to back away from challenging Iran.

In February 2011 a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate maintained an earlier conclusion that Iran’s leadership had not yet made the decision to assemble nuclear weapons. Indeed, until now, Iran has gone back and forth with the West at the negotiating table. The Revolutionary Guards’ statement seeks to break the deadlock by suggesting Iran’s policymakers should not fear domestic and foreign consequences of crossing the nuclear breakout threshold.

There is history in Iran for such media-based nuclear maneuvers. The Islamic Republic recommenced its atomic program, originally begun by the last shah, after suffering Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons attacks during the 1980s. But even then only concerted pressure persuaded its first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A major turning point occurred in October 1988 when a speech by Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of Iran’s parliament, recommending atom bombs was published by the IRGC.

Events in Afghanistan and Iraq gave Iran impetus for continuing its nuclear program. The Islamic Republic’s government came to fear that it would be next in line for involuntary regime change via U.S. troops. Iran’s leaders watched North Korea’s Kim Jong Il preempt Western force by demonstrating atomic capability. They now see NATO bombarding Libya’s nuclear-bereft Muammar Qadhafi. So, brushing off international sanctions and setbacks from poorly-designed domestic centrifuges and carefully-targeted foreign computer viruses, revolutionary Iran pursues its atomic quest.

Now even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) acknowledges detecting military dimensions. Iran has responded by notifying the IAEA that enrichment would be tripled and relocated from the Natanz facility to a more secure one at Fordo–possibly to safeguard against last-ditch military moves by the U.S. or Israel. But even a former Israeli intelligence director believes, like the American public, that preemption will fail.

The public prediction by Iran’s military of a mild aftermath to “a much anticipated” atomic test is reminiscent of the 1980s campaign to restart nuclear activities. It suggests to an Iran specialist like me that Tehran’s leaders are concluding “the day after a first nuclear test will be like any other” except their country could be less vulnerable and Iranians would be proud.

Indeed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become unequivocal that “no offer from world leaders could stop Iran enriching uranium,” stressing his position is in concert with that of current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The influential Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi supports Iran’s having nuclear weapons too.

Ahmadinejad, the ayatollahs, and the parliament are locked in political combat over the boundaries of executive authority. Military commanders may regard producing atom bombs as a means of rallying the factions together. The same applies to Supreme Leader Khamenei who has been urging unity and so may relent on the production of nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad too stands to regain national stature as a nuclear president.

Attempts by monarchies in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to blame their peoples’ unrest upon Iranian machinations have added to Tehran’s fears. Iranian officials envision a Saudi-led Sunni cabal harming Tehran specifically and Shiites generally. Resurgence of this centuries-old sectarian struggle also is galvanizing Iran’s clergymen, generals, and politicians into abandoning their hitherto cautious position of not declaring nuclear weapons as a goal.

So the IRGC’s candidness should come as no surprise, for a nuclear Iran is inevitable. Tehran, it seems, is attempting to reassure the world that it can behave no differently than the nine other nations with atom bombs. It would be prudent therefore to assume that Iran will no longer stop at “the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability” as the U.S. Department of State believes. Perhaps, as their recent words suggest, some members of Iran’s government understand mutually assured destruction and seek to mitigate irreversible political and economic tensions.

Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Iranian, Islamic and International studies, and former director of the Middle Eastern studies program at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also a member of the National Council on the Humanities at the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed are his own.